Brown
by aca-avenger
Summary: Arizona does the only thing she can after arriving at SGMW following the accident.   "Today was supposed to be a perfect day... Today was the day she was supposed to say yes."


Hey guys, I'm sorry for being away for so long. School took a lot of my time this year leaving minscule time for writing. Hopefully over the summer I will be able to get back into the swing of this. This is just a quick oneshot I wrote take place in episode 7.18. I hope y'all enjoy! (:

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><p>Brown. Growing up it was the color of the mud that caked to the bottom of my brother's shoes once he finally came in from playing outside in the numerous backyards we had moving from base to base. It was the color of the leather chair that sat behind the desk in my father's study in every house we went, my grandparents' hardwood floor, the lockers at every school I went to, and the list could go on and on. As I got older it became the color of the library tables I spent countless hours at studying for the MCAT, the walls of my bedroom in my first off-campus apartment. But it also became the color of the carpet that covered the aisles on the plane I took while leaving everything I ever needed behind and the huts my patients lived in during my time in Africa. But in Seattle, the one place in the entire world where I felt completely safe, at home, scared to death, and lost all at once, things changed.<p>

What once was tainted by the sorrowful memories of my brother throughout his much to short life and regretful memories of ever leaving the place I would always call home became filled with the one thing I needed, the one thing everyone needs to survive anything, love.

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><p>The extent of my world is now filled with brown. My mind taken by the warmth, love and security I could always find the depths of the breath-taking brown eyes of my Calliope, the love of my life. The somewhat foreign wood panelled walls of the hospital sanctuary surround me. I can't help but think back to the day I once sat here comforting her, the day that made me even more certain that I was one hundred percent right thinking that I had in fact fallen completely in love with Calliope Torres in the quite short time I had known her.<p>

But today was different.

Today I was here to pray, which I know Calliope would approve of a lot more than she did of my old habit of chain-smoking when the going got tough. I was here because Calliope showed me the importance of believing in something. She may not have necessarily been talking about God and her beliefs but she inspired me to believe as well.

Growing up I was taught that country was the first line of defense, and God the second. Instead of having a cross hung in our home we had a flag, the star-spangled banner folded into a formal triangle sitting nicely on the mantle. I was never a hundred percent certain on we prayed in front of that flag hoping it would relay our message, our hopes and dreams to God but I believed it would anyhow. It wasn't that we didn't believe in God, we did, it was just that we were taught country always comes first; four generations of Robbins' served our country because of that belief.

But now, I understand. We weren't simply being taught about the importance of country and patriotism, we were being taught that God is everywhere. No matter who you are, no matter where you are, no matter how you're doing, God is always there. And she reminds me of that every day.

And that was the main reason why I was here; to help ensure that she would still be here every day to remind me.

I step further into the sanctuary, slowly but surely making my way to the front of the room. I am thankful that other than me the room is empty. I've come to find that with my experience in speech making that I find it easier to pray aloud. I eventually stop at the front row and take a seat, my eyes falling upon the large wooden cross in front of the sanctuary's two small stain glass windows.

"God, I may be good at making speeches and telling people how I feel about things but right now I'm not quite sure if I'll be able to find the words to explain exactly how I feel." I take a deep breath as I feel my emotions begin to get the better of me resulting in tears beginning to form in my eyes.

"I'm here to talk to you about Calliope, well Calliope and our baby. I'm sure you know that they're fighting for their lives right now. I'm here to ask you to keep them safe. Only you know what it is that I've done to deserve them. Calliope is absolutely amazing; she's like nobody else on this earth. She's kind, loyal, honourable, and you and I both know I could go on and on. And I'm sure that our child is going to be just as amazing she is. We both know that she doesn't deserve to be lying on a gurney be pushed towards the operating room. She is too good of a person to be headed there in this condition."

Tears are now streaming down my face and I can feel my mascara beginning to glob. Today was supposed to be a perfect day. Today was supposed to be a day just for the two, well three, of us. Today I was supposed to ask Calliope to be my wife, ask her to spend the rest of her life with me, our child, and whatever other children came along. Today was the day she was supposed to say yes.

"She doesn't deserve to die, and neither does our child. If you have to take some one," I can't help but choke slightly on my own words as I think of living the rest of my life without them. "If you have to take someone, take me. I'm begging you, take me instead."

I can't help but relive the moments after everything went downhill; the sight of the love of my life laying on the hood my car, bloody and bruised, the look in Calliope's eyes as I spoke to her and how she saw right through me as if I wasn't even there, the way she whimpered the entire time until she was put in the ambulance.

"It was my fault. If only I had waited 'til we got to the bed and breakfast to ask her, if I had just let the texts from Mark go then they'd both be perfectly fine. We would be lying in bed, my arms wrapped around Calliope's baby bump, holding her close as possible. We'd be talking about baby names and colors for the nursery. Instead we're here. I'm praying. Calliope and our child are being prepped for surgery. Here I am with only a few scratches and they have life threatening injuries. These things wouldn't be happening if it wasn't for me. I,"

I'm cut off short by the sound of the door creaking open slowly. I quickly wipe away the tears that were streaming down my face. I carefully turn around and find the small but powerful figure of Miranda Bailey standing just in front of the sanctuary doors.

"I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I thought you'd like to know that we're taking Callie into surgery now and they've called Addison." Bailey's usually firm tone was now soft and uncertain, almost as if she was a nervous young resident answering an attending's posed question.

"Thank you, Miranda." I stand up from my seat, wiping my eyes once again. "It's nice to know that you'll be one of the ones that get to be with her." My own voice feels foreign now; the determination in which I once prayed has been replaced by the voice of the timid, shy little girl I had once been from the ages of three to seven.

Thinking back to myself as a child, I can't help but imagine our unborn child; our son with Calliope's big brown warm eyes staring up at me as I fasten his bike helmet before he rides a bike for the first time or our daughter letting me braid her long dark brown hair into pigtails as she lets out a hearty chuckle just like Calliope's.

"Arizona?" Bailey's voice brings me out of my daydream.

"I'm sorry, you were saying?"

"I said that you're free to sit in the hallway if you'd rather be closer to her than staying in the waiting room." She gives me a soft smile before turning around and opening the door, pausing once again. "I'll update you whenever I can, I promise." And with that she was gone.

I turn my attention back to the wooden cross behind the altar of the sanctuary.

"God, you and I both know that they don't deserve this. You already have Timothy so I will ask you once again. If you have to take someone take me instead. I love Calliope more than life itself and I love her child just as much as if they were my own. So please keep them safe and healthy. Amen."

I take a deep breath before taking the second most difficult walk of my life, the first being my lonely walk to my flight to Africa after leaving Calliope behind. With every step I take the sound of my heart pounding gets louder and louder.

As I walk towards the surgical wing I'm met with the sight of Calliope laying, sedated on a gurney being pushed down the hall. I stop in my tracks. The memories didn't do her or her injuries justice. Even though she was covered in lacerations and bruises she was still the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.

All I could do now was watch the love of my life being wheeled away from me and hope that I would be blessed with the honour of getting to look in the endless brown eyes of Calliope Torres for the rest of my life.


End file.
